I have good luck keeping pumpkin seeds from orange pumpkins from one year to the next. I take them out of a pumpkin, rinse them off in a colander, and let them dry out. Can this be done with yellow, white, and other specialty pumpkins and get them to produce the type of pumpkin the seed came out of.

Yep, if they are a hybrid variety you don't get any fruit/produce from the plant. It will grow will not bare a product.

I have done this with my Grandmother's "Giant" pumpkins for years. I hear deer like them so I may have to plant a bunch in the field.

All plants in the genus Cucurbita are cross fertile including Pumpkins, Summer and Winter Squash and Gourds. Unless only one type is kept far away from others, it's really easy to get odd looking hybrids from saved seeds. My friend Dennis grew some really neat looking pumpkin/gourd crosses. They looked like normal orange pumpkins, with large, long flanges of varying colors. For 6 years, he tried to stabilize them by isolating them, with no luck. They always remained highly variable and he kept losing size and texture, until he finally abandoned the project.

Some specialty pumpkins are first generation hybrids and some are fixed. The seed packets from the originals and the catalogs should tell you.

Rupp probably has the best selection in the US.

I've see some fantastic pumpkins at auctions the last few years. If I had more time, I would play with the genetics of Cucurbita like I do with pigeons, chickens and quail and used to do with mice and beans.



Keith

It will produce something but normally not what you are wanting.

Keith ,Is that a real work horse in harness or a statue ? Nice pumpkins .

It's real there's another one behind that one probably Amish folk.

That's a real work horse used by the Amish to haul produce to the Scioto Valley Produce Auction just North of Mt.Victory, Ohio. I buy there pretty frequently. They have great produce and prices.

There's some Amish in the background of this picture from the auction.



At the auction after that one, I bought a bin of orange, yellow and white pumpkins (I thin 67 total), 36 mums, peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Keith

Heirloom seeds which are open pollinated can be saved with good results I used to grow between 7-8 acres of pumpkins and 2 acres of squash by saving the biggest and best for seeds I had the best results I also tried different hybrids every year Many did poorly due to soil type and growing conditions

Awesome Keith

Keith you are a man of many talents ! Thank you

saved seeds from this banana squash a few years ago before I learned better

It was crossed with a pumpkin

this one started as an acorn squash, crossed with pumpkin the first year, then a yellow straight neck, then a spaghetti .I just replant one hill every year to see what it makes

You can take the gloop and guts out of a squash - pumpkin, put them on a paper plate, stick in the dehydrator on low, or no heat, for a day or so. Then you can scrunch them in your hand like soup crackers, and they come out out all clean and neat.